


The Lovers

by vsycho



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - The Purge Fusion, Blood, Childhood Friends, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gun Violence, Killing, Kinda, M/M, Necrophilia, Writer!Mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23799856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vsycho/pseuds/vsycho
Summary: The last innocent memory Donghyuck has of Mark is when they were in the field behind their middle school, knee-deep in the tall grass and holding each other's hand. He remembers the golden glint of Mark’s necklace beneath his shirt, and the crystal tears that streamed down his cheeks as they watched people smash rocks into the windows of the school and tear its walls off.“Murderers,” Mark whispered, covering his mouth. His shoulders shook uncontrollably. “Look at them, they’re killing it. They’re murderers.”He was never the same after it. He screamed in his sleep and laughed while he cried and threw bodies in the dumpster. He made Donghyuck attend a thousand funerals of the people he used to be. The younger boy wept and mourned every time he took Mark into his arms. Sometimes he even thought that Mark had actually been killed along with their school, that his ghost is aimlessly looming over the ruins of what had once been their childhood, and that he isn't ever really there, telling foolish stories on his type-writer or laying half-asleep on the couch.Donghyuck remembers many things from his life back then. But he’ll always miss Mark the most.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





	The Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration: Romance by Ex:Re, Sober II (Melodrama) by Lorde and Little Beast by Richard Siken.
> 
> Please do consider the tags before reading!

Donghyuck loves Mark. He loves him, but he’s also very tired. Today has felt more like a chore than anything else, and all he wants to do is submerge himself in a deep sleep. He leans his back against the brick wall of the alley-way, his muscles screaming in relief as he waits for Mark to finish the job.

Mark is the one full of energy. He always is, right after he kills, as though he gets struck by an electric shock of elation and vigor. He takes it upon himself to heave the corpse over his shoulder and throw it into the rusted dumpster. There’s blood all over him, licks of it at his jaw trailing down to large stains in his shirt, jacket, and pants. He looks over his shoulder to beam at Donghyuck. 

The younger boy tries to return the enthusiasm by forcing a smile of his own, hopes Mark doesn’t see right through him.

He doesn’t. He only takes Donghyuck’s hand in his and leads them back to what Donghyuck calls it a shit excuse of a hideaway. (Mark calls it home.)

They lie down together on the old, red corduroy couch, Donghyuck’s head on Mark’s chest. The older boy smells like iron, sweat, dirt and insanity, and Donghyuck presses the side of his face into his soiled shirt to listen for a heart-beat. He barely hears one, but thinks that it’s just his ears playing tricks on him. 

Of course Mark is alive. He’s even proven it. From the way he slashes people’s throats open, the way they both run down the streets to escape gunshots, the way he fucks Donghyuck into their bed’s rotting mattress at three in the morning. 

He’s alive, and safe, and Donghyuck loves him more than anything else in this burning world.

When Donghyuck wakes up, he finds himself alone on the couch. He doesn’t bother looking out the window to know what time of the day it is; they closed them all off weeks ago, nailing wooden boards into their frames to hide the two of them away from any prying eyes. 

Mark sits cross-legged on the floor in front of his type-writer, wearing nothing but a worn-out pair of black shorts. The clicking of the keys are constant as they ring through the emptiness of the apartment, and Mark’s eyes are sharp, solely focused on the words he strikes into the paper. 

Donghyuck sits up sluggishly and cards his fingers through his matted hair. His voice is gravelly when he speaks, “Mark.”

A hum answers him. He gets up, legs aching, and settles behind his boyfriend to press chaste kisses along his shoulder-blade.

“Burst of creativity?”

Mark hums again, cranes his head when Donghyuck latches his lips onto his neck. A low sigh escapes his mouth as his fingers struggle to remember the words his brain is telling them. Donghyuck pays no mind to his waning concentration and sucks another bruise into his skin.

“I don’t really get what you could possibly be writing about these days.”

A hand comes to tug Donghyuck’s wandering fingers off his chest. The younger huffs at this but lets go anyway, opting to sit across from Mark, his legs stretched out in front of him.

“I’m writing about us,” Mark tells him. “Our story. How we survived this and won.”

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. “I hope you haven’t written the end yet.”

At this, Mark glances up at him. His eyes burn through Donghyuck’s skull. “What are you saying?” His question sounds more like an accusation, and has Donghyuck shifting in his place.

There’s a beat of silence, and then, “I just think we shouldn’t pretend to be things that we’re not.”

Mark stares for a minute, his face expressionless. And then he resumes his writing, not bothering to give a response.

Donghyuck returns to the couch. The sound of the keys fill up the room once more; he lets it lull him back to sleep.

There isn’t much to do to pass time. It’s hard to organize a house that has very little in it, and they’ve established a rule long ago about not going outside unless it was necessary. 

Mark has spent the last couple of days writing, a small stack of papers appearing beside him. Donghyuck doesn’t disturb unless it’s to pass him food and drinks but even then Mark maintains his concentration.

There’s a record player and a box of vinyls in one of the corners of the living room, having been left behind by the house’s previous occupant. Donghyuck practically marveled at them when they arrived, but was, and still is, not allowed to play anything. Or at least that’s what Mark told him.

“If you want us to live for longer than two days,” he had said, “You wouldn’t turn that thing on.”

While Mark continues his story, Donghyuck entertains himself by dancing alone on the other side of the room. He plays music in his head, doesn’t stop swaying and twirling and leaping. Not until he’s out of breath, his chest heaving and his cheeks flushed, and not until the song inside of him comes to an end either, bringing him crashing back to the bleak and grey reality that surrounds him.

Donghyuck is sure that they’re both alive. They just aren’t living. 

Donghyuck remembers many things from his life back then, even when he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know why it happens; he usually isn’t one to dwell on the past. On those days when he wasn’t afraid of looking in the mirror. When Mark’s hands weren’t covered in blood. When the world wasn’t on fire. 

The last innocent memory Donghyuck has of Mark is when they were in the field behind their middle school, knee-deep in the tall grass and holding each other's hand. He remembers the golden glint of Mark’s necklace beneath his shirt, and the crystal tears that streamed down his cheeks as they watched people smash rocks into the windows of the school and tear its walls off.

“Murderers,” Mark whispered, covering his mouth. His shoulders shook uncontrollably. “Look at them, they’re killing it. They’re _murderers_.”

He was never the same after it. He screamed in his sleep and laughed while he cried and threw bodies in the dumpster. He made Donghyuck attend a thousand funerals of the people he used to be. The younger boy wept and mourned every time he took Mark into his arms. Sometimes he even thought that Mark had actually been killed along with their school, that his ghost is aimlessly looming over the ruins of what had once been their childhood, and that he isn't ever really there, telling foolish stories on his type-writer or laying half-asleep on the couch.

Donghyuck remembers many things from his life back then. But he’ll always miss Mark the most.

“When this is all over,” Mark murmurs, “I’m going to take you to the beach.”

Donghyuck sits on the edge of the bath-tub while he stands in it, washing shampoo out of the younger boy's hair. He pulls a bit too hard at one point, but Donghyuck makes no sound of pain, and instead asks,

“Which one?”

Fumes escape from the corner of Mark’s mouth. “Any one you’d like.”

Donghyuck removes the cigarette from between his lips and lets himself take a draw from it. Then he tugs Mark down by the arm and kisses him square on the mouth, forcing him to take in the cloud of smoke.

“All of them,” he tells Mark when they break away, “I want to go to all of them.”

There’s a body in their bedroom. There’s a body in their bedroom, and blood on the sheets, and Donghyuck is curled up against the wall, a knife in his trembling hand. 

To Mark, it looks like a scene straight out of a movie, the aftermath of the climax, the action still lingering in the air. Another skeleton for them to shove into the closet and pretend isn’t watching them while they sleep at night.

Donghyuck is as fragile as glass when Mark gathers him in his arms. The back-pack of food and supplies has been abandoned in the doorway of the bedroom, and Mark’s hands are cold on his cheeks. Water drips from the tips of his ebony black hair, and Donghyuck wonders if it’s raining outside. He tries listening for the sound of raindrops at the window to distract himself from the horror around him, but it doesn’t work. The stranger is still pale with death, and the knife is still in his hands. Mark takes it from him, puts it on the floor.

He knows that killing isn’t foreign to Donghyuck. He’s done it before and is used to it. But the latch on the front-door had been busted, and the water in the bathroom sink is still running, and Mark figures that Donghyuck hadn't been expecting it.

“He’s dead,” Mark whispers, stroking his head. “Look at me.” Donghyuck does. Mark’s pupils are blown wide. There’s something dark and frantic in his eyes, as though something trapped inside of him is trying to rip its way out. “ _He’s dead_. It’s just us now.”

Then he leans in, his breath like feathers against Donghyuck’s lips, and kisses him hard.

Their love-making is as violent as it is gentle. Mark alternates between rough and smooth thrusts, and drags his teeth across Donghyuck’s skin like he wants to eat him open. The younger boy wails as Mark drives his body into his, digs his blunt nails into his arms. Pleasure drips out of their mouths and eyes and ears, hot and garnet-red, and stains the air, makes it humid and tight.

The dead body underneath Donghyuck pathetically rocks back and forth along with them, its clothed chest sticking to Donghyuck's sweat-slicked back. 

Mark watches as the boy's mouth falls open, wraps his hands around the base of his cock. “Do you love me?” he pants, chest heaving. 

Donghyuck shivers. “Yes.”

“Say it.”

He circles his arms around Mark’s neck, head tossed back and eyes rolling back. “I love you, I love you, I love you⎼”

The latch on the front-door is busted. The water in the bathroom sink is still running. And Mark makes Donghyuck cum over and over again.

The gun that Mark gives Donghyuck looks a bit heavy in his hands, but it suits him, Mark fancies as he watches him practice his grip on it. They sit down on the kitchen floor bundled in a large blanket and drink beer out of green glass bottles, trying to get drunk off of alcohol instead of the smell of death.

Mark takes Donghyuck's free hand to kiss his bruised knuckles, and, for the first time in a while, Donghyuck smiles at him.

(They fall asleep slouched against the bottom cupboards, their arms linked together. Donghyuck dreams of fire and sunsets and being chased by Mark along the long shore of a vast red ocean but when he finally looks back, he's the only one on the beach, and Mark is nowhere to be found.)

The wind eventually carries September’s fading warmth away to make place for chilly October days. The tree leaves burn into orange and yellow hues, and Donghyuck makes sure to admire them thoroughly every time he gets a chance to go outside.

Mark tells him he’s almost finished with his story, spends one half of his time writing like a madman and the other half roaming the streets and raiding houses to stock up before it gets too cold.

He comes back one time with a frayed box of tarot cards and tells Donghyuck that it should provide some kind of entertainment during the winter-time. Neither of them knows how actual readings work, so they make up a game instead. They lay all the cards with their fronts facing downwards and place bets on which one the other person is going to flip over.

Mark picks first. A teasing smile tugs at his lips as he bets it will be The Sun. Donghyuck says it’s The Moon.

The card is flipped. The angel of Judgement stares up at them. Mark clicks his tongue in disapproval.

It’s Donghyuck’s turn. He chooses Death; Mark, the Wheel of Fortune. Donghyuck checks the card. Wins the round.

This time, when Mark bets on The World and Donghyuck bets on The Hermit, the card of The Lovers welcomes their gaze. Mark hums happily, presses a kiss into Donghyuck’s temple.

“Looks like we’re meant to be.”

Donghyuck doesn’t tell Mark the card is Reversed.

When it happens, it’s a spur in the moment. Donghyuck finds it funny; he always thought that it would be planned out beforehand, with every detail thought out, but volatility is apparently in style these days, he thinks to himself, and adjusts his hold on the gun.

The bedroom reeks of sex and smoke, and the lights are on, orange and bright, so that Donghyuck sees every flutter and twitch on Mark’s face as he looks up at him. They’re both half-dressed - Mark is wearing one of Donghyuck’s shirts, decorated in rips and holes, and a coarse pair of jeans hang loose at Donghyuck’s hips.

Mark notices the way the other's fingers quiver around the grip of the weapon, but doesn’t take it as a sign of weakness or uncertainty, and simply rests the back of his head on the headboard.

“You were right,” he tells Donghyuck. His voice breaks, and his eyes are glossy. “We shouldn’t pretend to be things that we’re not.”

Donghyuck opens his mouth, a bouquet of words withering at the tip of his tongue. But Mark understands, knows what he wants to say. He closes his eyes, hands clasped in his lap.

Donghyuck clicks the safety of the gun off, then shoots Mark once in the head.

Mark’s lifeless body is still slumped forward with his face in the sheets when Donghyuck re-enters the room an hour later. For an unknown reason, he had a strange feeling that it would have changed places, or that he had missed the shot after all, and that Mark was alive, waiting for the right moment to lunge at him and gut him like an animal. 

But the small splatter of blood is still on the wood of the head-board and Mark’s arms and legs are still limp, so Donghyuck approaches the corpse and quickly unclasps the piece of jewelry hanging around his dead lover’s neck. He lets it dangle in the air for a moment.

A golden coin is looped around a thin string of gilded metal. The drawing of a lion is engraved into one of the coin's sides. Donghyuck smooths the pad of his thumb over it, feeling the unevenness of the surface.

Then, carefully, he puts the necklace on and plants one last kiss into the top of Mark’s head.

The funeral Donghyuck holds for Mark isn't the same one he thought he'd hold when they were younger. He pictured people dressed in black, grieving clouds, flowers in an open casket. Instead he gets a bottle of wine off the kitchen counter and a box of matches to light Mark's corpse on fire in the middle of the living room.

A melodious Italian song drones from the record player as a requiem and Donghyuck uses Mark's story for a make-shift eulogy. The printed words consume him the same way the flames consume the body, engulfing him in Mark's world. Donghyuck goes through the story fast, expecting to find a half-finished phrase on the last page.

He doesn't.

Instead, there's a scene depicting the two of them at a beach, specified as 'the winners'. They stand near the ocean, close enough for the water to reach them and wash the blood off their bare feet. Fictional Donghyuck is smiling (he hasn't stopped doing so ever since the beginning of the story) and asks Fictional Mark which beach they're on. The other boy leans in to kiss him, then whispers,

" _All of them."_

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I love Markhyuck.
> 
> ~~Though I might turn this into a series and write for Nomin too.~~
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Thank you so much for reading. c:


End file.
